Did she even love him--were even her parents to consent,--his own,--for his vivid and excited fancy for one minute imagined what in more sober moments he knew was impossible--yet even were such difficulties removed, would he, could he take that fair and fragile creature from a home of luxury and every comfort to poverty?
What had he to support a wife?
How could they live, and what hope had he of increasing in any way his fortune?
Was he not exciting her affections to reduce them, like his own, to despair?
And could she, beautiful and delicate as she was, could she bear the deprivation of his lot?
She would never marry without the consent of her parents, and their approval would never be his, and even if it were, he had nothing, not the slightest hope of gaining anything wherewith to support her; and she, if indeed she loved him, he should see her droop and sink before his eyes, and that he could not bear; his own misery might be endured, but not hers.

No! He paced the small apartment with reckless and disordered steps.

His own doom was fixed, nothing could now prevent it--but hers, it might not be too late.

He would withdraw from her sight, he would leave her presence, and for ever; break the spell that bound him near her.

Ere that hasty walk in his narrow room was completed, his resolution was fixed; he would resign his curacy, and depart from the dangerous fascinations hovering round him.
Yet still he lingered.